corruption

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Clinton-Led Recovery Is the Last Thing Haiti Needs

Unofficial aid czar has a record of corrupt dealings

(Newser) - Bill Clinton's high-profile, perpetually teary-eyed presence on the ground in Haiti has snagged him the unofficial role of aid czar in the rebuilding effort, Mary Anastasia O'Grady writes in the Wall Street Journal , and that's very bad news for Haitians. As president, O'Grady writes, Clinton did plenty to show he...

What Rebuilding Haiti Will Mean
 What Rebuilding Haiti Will Mean 
Jan 19, 2010 4:45 AM CST

What Rebuilding Haiti Will Mean

Debt relief, housing quality, and a better government are key

(Newser) - World leaders have vowed to rebuild Haiti's infrastructure into something better than it was before; the Independent takes a look at what this would mean in practice:
  • Higher-quality housing: Haiti has no building codes; international donors should insist the new dwellings their funds build for those left homeless in the
...

Haitians: 'We Didn't Feel Like We Had a Gov't'

Shy President Préval has been largely MIA since quake

(Newser) - Since Haiti was devastated by last Tuesday's earthquake, the country's president has been so invisible that many Haitians are wondering whether they have a government at all. Haitian officials say the government of President René Préval is too incapacitated to take any public role, but longtime politician Préval...

For US Adoptees Seeking Roots in China, Only Obstacles

Search for birth parents leaves many frustrated

(Newser) - For the US adoptive families who return to China in search of their children's birth parents, their travels often, and frustratingly, wind their way to dead ends. Adoptions in China remain defiantly closed and shrouded in mystery—the country prohibits the abandoning of children, so most babies are abandoned anonymously,...

Drug Moles Infiltrate Border Patrol

Hiring rush making it easier for cartels to corrupt agency

(Newser) - The US Border Patrol has been stepping up its efforts to recruit agents and so have the Mexican cartels. Investigators say the traffickers, faced with tightened, high-tech security along the border, are trying to corrupt border agents any way they can and to plant their own people in jobs. The...

Blagojevich Defense Wants Obama to Testify

Lawyers seek investigators' interviews with Obama, Emanuel

(Newser) - Rod Blagojevich's lawyers may attempt to get President Obama to testify in the former Illinois governor's corruption trial. The Blagojevich defense team has sought access to federal investigators' interviews with Obama and Rahm Emanuel conducted last year in order to determine whether to call the president or his chief of...

Russian Cop Gets 2 Years for Killing Journo

Magomed Yevloyev had been critical of the government

(Newser) - A court in southern Russia has convicted a policeman of involuntary homicide in the death of a journalist critical of the government. The former head of a local police chief's guard service today received a two-year sentence for shooting journalist Magomed Yevloyev in 2008; Yevloyev's relatives, who claim the killing...

Obama Gambles on Dubious Afghan Allies
Obama Gambles on Dubious Afghan Allies
Dexter Filkins
Dec 2, 2009 8:49 AM CST

Obama Gambles on Dubious Afghan Allies

Surge relies on corrupt Karzai government, poorly-trained military

(Newser) - By announcing an 18-month timetable, Barack Obama has thrown down the gauntlet for an Afghan government and military that have so far proven unreliable. Hamid Karzai’s government is considered among the world’s most corrupt, but Obama seems to be betting that the withdrawal timetable will encourage it to...

Chinese Complainers Kidnapped
Chinese Complainers Kidnapped
Nov 12, 2009 4:44 AM CST

Chinese Complainers Kidnapped

People routinely held in 'black jails,' journalists beaten

(Newser) - Chinese citizens en route to Beijing to lodge complaints with China's central government are routinely nabbed by thugs and tossed into makeshift "black jails" where they are illegally detained for days or months, deprived of food and water, beaten and threatened—then sent back home without filing their complaints....

US Ambassador Disagrees on Afghan Troop Surge

Wants Karzai government to shape up first

(Newser) - The US ambassador to Afghanistan—a former general who served there as recently as 2007—is against increasing troop levels until the Afghan government gets its act together. In classified cables ahead of President Obama’s deliberations on a surge, Karl Eikenberry cites rampant corruption and mismanagement in Hamid Karzai’...

Web Protests Win Surprise Traction in China

Some fear official tolerance is surveillance in disguise

(Newser) - The usually repressive Chinese government has been surprisingly tolerant of—and even responsive to—a wave of Internet petitions protesting local injustices and corruption. Online campaigns have gotten accused killers freed, officials fired, and charges dropped against a motorist who cut off his own finger to protest police entrapment, then...

Triad Trial Exposes Chinese Corruption

Tycoons, party officials snared in Chongqing crackdown

(Newser) - A mass trial of Chinese gangsters in Chongqing has exposed a vast network of corruption amid the mega-city's police and Communist Party officials. Thousands of suspects, including dozens of high-ranking officials and top businessmen, have been arrested in an effort to crack down on the city's triads. Six have already...

Karzai Promises Change; Taliban Disses 'Puppet'

Insurgent 'brothers' reject the Afghan president's call for unity

(Newser) - Hamid Karzai made some sweeping but non-specific promises to banish corruption and reach out to opponents today in his first press conference since being re-elected by default. The Afghan president also reached out to "Taliban brothers," urging them to "embrace their land," but his overtures were...

Karzai's Brother a Bad Investment for CIA
 Karzai's Brother 
 a Bad Investment for CIA 
aryn baker
Oct 28, 2009 1:32 PM CDT

Karzai's Brother a Bad Investment for CIA

Alleged drug runner undermines US effort

(Newser) - No one in Afghanistan will be shocked by the allegations that Ahmed Wali Karzai is a drug runner on the CIA payroll, writes Aryn Baker. The accusations are old news, and Aghans have always figured brother Hamid for a US stooge anyway. But it’s probably fairly shocking to Americans,...

Kerik Trial Pushed Back After Leak
Kerik Trial Pushed Back After Leak
Oct 23, 2009 2:35 PM CDT

Kerik Trial Pushed Back After Leak

No new date set; ex-NYPD commish will remain in jail

(Newser) - Bernard Kerik has more time in jail to look forward to. The former NYPD commissioner’s federal corruption trial was postponed today, with no new date set for jury selection. Kerik’s trial was supposed to begin on Monday, but a delay was widely expected after a judge revoked his...

Karzai's Government Too Rotten to Back
Karzai's Government
Too Rotten to Back
OPINION
Oct 14, 2009 1:19 AM CDT

Karzai's Government Too Rotten to Back

Sending more troops won't work if they're protecting a tainted government

(Newser) - No counterinsurgency campaign can succeed without a good government to work with, and Hamid Karzai's operation is nowhere near good enough, writes Thomas L. Friedman. Karzai's government is thoroughly corrupt and his election victory deeply tainted, Friedman notes in the New York Times. Much of the insurgency is now fueled...

Berlusconi: I'm Not Going Anywhere

Italian PM defiant as multiple criminal cases reopen

(Newser) - Silvio Berlusconi, fighting for his political life after a court ruled he was not immune from criminal prosecution, called the ruling politically motivated and vowed to stay on as Italy's prime minister. Already weakened by sex scandals, Berlusconi will now face at least two trials, one concerning witness tampering and...

Berlusconi Uses Animal Farm Defense

Lawyers argue 'more equal' PM shouldn't be prosecuted

(Newser) - All Italians are equal but some are more equal than others, according to lawyers seeking to prevent Silvio Berlusconi from standing trial on corruption charges. A constitutional court examining the legitimacy of a law shielding prime ministers from prosecution—which was introduced by Berlusconi himself—was told the leader is...

Blue Dog Gets Real Estate Windfall From Drug Company

USA Drug overpaid for Ross' wife's pharmacy

(Newser) - Arkansas Rep. Mike Ross, a Blue Dog Democrat who’s taken a leading role in the health care debate, sold a piece of commercial real estate to a pharmaceutical company for an eye-popping sum in 2007, Pro Publica reports. USA Drug paid $420,000 for the property in Prescott, Ark....

Blago Memoir: 'I Didn't Do Anything Wrong'

And he might move to New York, where no one has told him to 'F off' yet

(Newser) - When it comes to political memoirs, Rod Blagojevich’s The Governor: Finally, the Truth Behind the Political Scandal That Continues to Rock the Nation “is surely unsurpassed” in the areas of “febrile self-defensiveness and look-over-there deflections and deceptions,” writes David Remnick for the New Yorker. “No...

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